FOIA requests to be filed at Seattle ICE field office

Seattle, WA — Immigrant advocates are not taking ICE officials at their word over this week’s announcement that ICE is scrapping “Operation Mega,” its plan to target and detain nearly 10,000 immigrants over a five-day span beginning September 16.

On Tuesday, September 12, advocates will deliver a FOIA request to the local ICE office, demanding information into the detailed plans for “Operation Mega” and any potential future plans to implement mass immigration raids in Washington State.

Those present will discuss the continuing threat ICE poses to immigrant communities across the state and the country. ICE spokespersons are well known for making false statements to the media either deliberately or because they have been misinformed. It is highly possible that ICE national headquarters will take a back seat while field offices, including the Seattle field office, act “independently” to execute the plan to conduct large-scale raids. The claim that ICE is scrapping “Operation Mega” to pursue “life-saving measures” in response to hurricanes Harvey and Irma rings hollow, given that ICE refused to suspend operations during the evacuations for Harvey. Even if the original plans for the operation have changed, large-scale immigration raids are still highly likely, particularly in areas like the Pacific Northwest that are not being affected by the hurricanes. The entire impetus for “Operation Mega” likely stems from pressure to achieve maximum capacity in immigrant detention centers, like the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, to make a case to Congress for the unnecessary funding increases requested by the administration.

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NWDC Resistance is a volunteer community group that emerged to fight deportations in 2014 at the now-infamous Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. NWDC Resistance is part of the #Not1Morecampaign and supported people detained who organized hunger strikes asking for a halt to all deportations and better treatment and conditions.